The Great Geek Manual

1876
Alexander Graham Bell receives a patent for an “Improvement in Telegraphy,” which will later come to be known as the telephone. (US No. 174,465) The patent application was submitted on February 14, just hours ahead of Elisha Gray. This first telephone has only one transducer for both listening and speaking. Originally envisioned as a way to transmit music to homes from a central location, the phone soon gains popularity as a means of communication. Within a short time after filing the patent, the Bell Company (Bell’s newly formed corporation) is besieged by lawsuits and challenges to the patent. On March 10, Bell will speak the famous words “Mr. Watson, come here, I want you” through a phone to his assistant after spilling some acid in their workshop. The message will be the first transmitted over a phone.

1926
The first successful trans-Atlantic radio-telephone conversation takes place, between New York and London.

1933
The game Monopoly is created and trademarked by Charles Darrow in Atlantic City. It is preceded by several other real estate games. The first, called “The Landlord’s Game,” was invented by Lizzie Magie of Virginia (patented 1904). In it, players rented properties, paid utilities and avoided “Jail” as they moved around the board. Darrow set about creating his own version, modeled on his favorite resort, Atlantic City. He introduced several innovations in his game, which had a circular, cloth board. He color-coded the properties and deeds for them, and allowed properties to be bought, not just rented. The playing pieces were modeled on items from around his own house. The game will be mass marketed by Parker Brothers in 1935.

1979
Scientists discover a ring around Jupiter while examining photographs taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft. The rings of Saturn were discovered in 1610. Astronomers had discovered rings around Uranus in 1977.

1990
In the case of Atari Games and Tengen, Inc. v Nintendo of America, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rules in favor of Nintendo, allowing Nintendo to sue retailers who buy unauthorized video game cartridges. Read the ruling.

Richard G. Wittman Jr., age 24, of Denver, Colorado, admits breaking into NASA computer systems at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. In a plea bargain, Wittman pleads guilty to a single count of altering information (a password) inside a federal computer. In exchange for the plea, federal prosecutors dropped six similar counts. Wittman told US District Judge Sherman Finesilver that it took him about one and a half to two hours on a personal computer using Telnet via telephone lines in his apartment to tap into the space agency’s restricted files. It took NASA investigators nearly three hundred hours to track down Wittman and an additional one hundred hours to rewrite the software to prevent a recurrence of the break-in. Wittman broke into 118 systems within the NASA network and acquired “super user” status, allowing him to review the files and electronic mail of other users. Wittman admitted to the judge that he had little in the way of a computer education, stating that he had learned most of what he knew from the hand full of books the FBI had seized from his home in the course of his arrest.

1994
Intel Release the 90 and 100 MHz versions of the Pentium Processor.

The U.S. Supreme Court“>United States Supreme Court rules in the case of Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. that parodies of an original work are protected by the fair use doctrine.

1996
The first photos of Pluto’s surface are released. Pluto is the only solar-system planet never visited by a spacecraft, but it is successfully photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope. The release presents the images taken in 1994 by a team of astronomers. To create a global map of the surface of Pluto, they took a total of twelve images at four distinct longitudes in the visible light spectrum and eight images in the ultraviolet spectrum. These photos cover nearly the entire surface of Pluto, taken as the planet rotates through its 6.4 day period. Pluto is revealed to be a complex object, with more large-scale contrast than any other planet, except Earth. The images also show almost a dozen distinctive albedo features, or provinces, never seen before. Read the original press release at the official Hubble website. See photos the original Hubble photos at the official Hubble website.

1997
Epic MegaGames, Inc. announces the Jay Wilbur, the former chief executive officer of id Software, has been hired as “Imperial Advisor”.

For the first time ever, an internet entry wins Bob Levey’s Washington Post neologism contest. Contestants are charged with creating a new word to describe a negative reaction to Washington. Scott Burroughs’ suggestion, “sqwashington,” arrived just eleven minutes before an identical entry. Visit Bob Levy’s official website.

Nintendo plans to cut the price of the Nintendo 64 from US$199 to US$150 in the United States. A Japanese newspaper reports that the cuts come in response to Sony Computer Entertainment America’s (SCEA) recent PlayStation price cuts. Nintendo officials will later refuse to confirm that the cuts are in response to Sony’s cuts, however.

1998
The website of The Jerusalem Post is hacked.

2000
The Intel Corporation announces a plan to offer a personal computer and Internet access for free to all of its seventy thousand full-time and part-time employees as early as July 2000.

2001
Express.com files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Jesus Oquendo, age 27, of Queens, New York is convicted and sentenced in Manhattan federal court to twenty-seven months imprisonment on charges of computer hacking into the system of Five Partners Asset Management LLC, a venture capital company based in Manhattan, under the alias of “Sil”. Oquendo left a taunting message on the company’s network, “Hello, I have just hacked into your system. Have a nice day.”

Yahoo, Inc. warns that they expect that 2001 earnings to drop below the newly reduced estimates. They also announce that Tim Koogle, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), will step down from his position.

2002
Apple Computer announces the one millionth download of its iPhoto software.

Sony announces that it will release a Linux development kit for the PlayStation 2 on May 22. The US$200 kit will include a 40GB hard drive, an Ethernet adapter, a mouse, and a keyboard. Visit the official PlayStation 2 developer’s network.

2005
University of Arizona student Parvin Dhaliwal becomes the first person is the United States to be convicted of a crime under state laws for illegally downloading music and movies from the Internet when he pleads guilty to possession of “counterfeit marks,” or unauthorized copies of intellectual property. The charge was filed after the FBI found more than US$50 million in music and movies on Dhaliwal’s computer, which he was allegedly selling. Under the terms of the agreement Dhaliwal reached with prosecutors, Dhaliwal receives a three-month deferred jail sentence, three years of probation, 200 hours of community service, and a US$5,400 fine. The judge further ordered the student to take a copyright class at the university he attends and to avoid file-sharing applications. Prior cases involving the prosecution of filesharing have all been handled at the federal level, however, Federal investigators referred this case to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office for prosecution because Dhaliwal had been a minor (age 17) when he committed the offense. Handling the case at the state level allowed prosecutors to defer his sentence.

2006
Microsoft announces that it has been granted its five thousandth U.S. patent. The patent is for technology used to create a distinct “spectator experience” in a video games, a technique used extensively in the Xbox 360. Microsoft has a long track record of using its patents as leverage in dominating licensing markets.

The one millionth unique user joins the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection network at 1:31am PST.

2007
The Marvel comic Captain America number 25 hits shelves. In it, Captain America dies after being shot by a sniper twice, once through the shoulder and once in the stomach as he left a Federal Courthouse in New York City. Captain America first appeared in print in 1941, and he was actively featured in comics for nearly sixty years.

2007
Turkey bans video host YouTube after officials discover videos mocking Turkish founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

2008
The Pentagon issues orders to all Defense Department bases and installations throughout the U.S. banning Google teams from making detailed street-level video maps of U.S. military bases following an incident in which panoramic images of a Texas military base were posted to Google Maps. Google responds with a statement explaining that taking such pictures is already against its company policies and that the prior incident was a mistake.